


HR

by Meatball42



Series: Rare Pairs [28]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Apparently bisexuality is the norm, Awesome Natasha Romanov, Bucky Barnes Recovering, But in the background no worries, Community: holly_poly, F/M, I forgot to write that in, M/M, Memory Loss, Minor law-breaking, Multi, Politics, Polyamory, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Red Room, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 09:56:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5703406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/pseuds/Meatball42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha has been carrying scars-- both literal and metaphorical-- for years, but she’s not going to let them get in the way of her two jobs: Match-Maker and Human Resources Manager.</p>
            </blockquote>





	HR

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flipflop_diva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/gifts).



> Hope this hits a few of your requests, flipflop_diva! I hope you don’t mind that this may have a sequel/threequel, the latter of which would include a ship you did not request. Would that be okay?? :)
> 
> My characterization of Sam and his place in the MCU is and will ever be informed by [this very well done and EXTREMELY VALUABLE meta](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1976394/chapters/12011141) and the story attached to it.

When Natasha was a little girl, back when she was still called Natalia Alianovna Romanova and handcuffed herself to her own bed every night, two of the other Black Widow trainees imprinted on each other. They were found out in the showers, where a monitor pulled one of them out and began to beat her for the pale yellow line that stretched from her shoulder blade to her elbow. The other girl abandoned the safe spray of water and attacked the monitor, screaming defense of her bondmate.

Natalia thought that was very stupid. She had looked away impassively as both girls were dragged away to be shot.

It was later, when the trainees learned about love and loyalty and how to manipulate both, that Natalia was taught about imprinting. Birth, circumstance, or choice could create connections between souls, which were visible on the outer flesh of the body. They were ugly, disfigurements. They proved that a person was tied to someone else, and that tie could be used to jerk them around like a fish hanging from a pole. Any trainee who developed one had failed in their task to become untouchable weapons for the Motherland, and would be shunned until the scar faded. If it did not, they were useless, and would be disposed of.

Natalia did not worry. By that age, she knew every inch of herself, and knew she would never grow a thin, colorful scar.

A few years later, most of the Black Widow trainees of her class were dead. Only Natalia, Yelena, and Irina remained. One spring, they were called back from their field assignments and told to report to an old training facility. They were to have have a guest instructor.

After three months training with the Winter Soldier on hand-to-hand, large-scale tactics, long-range assassination, Turkish, interrogation, and assault weapons, it was decided that among the Widows, Natalia best complemented the Soldier’s skills. They were assigned missions together, with the Soldier nominally in command.

Natalia did not mind the assignment, because she was in love. At the facility, Vanya would sneak into her room at night to see her. On missions, they did not have to hide.

The day she found a faint silvery ring around her smallest toe, she decided some things were worth being scarred for.

Natalia would never know if someone had noticed her mark, or the bright red line, just a centimeter long and thin as fishing line, that actually looked like a scar in the hair above the Soldier’s ear. Perhaps there was no reason other than the Soldier being needed elsewhere. But one day the Soldier was assigned a solo mission, and Natalia never saw him again. In the years that followed, his scar on her faded until it disappeared completely.

Now, it’s back, a thin black line that stretches from one hip to the other. The bullet wound the Soldier put in her side looks like it’s pinning the line in place.

Now, her Vanya is Bucky Barnes, is Steve’s best friend, is starting to remember the things Hydra and the Red Room took from him.

Now, Natasha Romanoff is standing in the doorway of an empty boxing studio in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma, looking at three men who have all left scars on her body.

Sam sees her first. He’s sitting on a weights bench, watching Bucky and Steve spar, but he gets up and comes over to greet her. He looks tired, his vest dark with sweat, but he eyes at her with respectful appreciation, and reaches for her with his left hand instead of his right.

Natasha takes it with her left hand, so that the twin red lines they have left on each others’ palms press together. Gentle warmth emanates from the contact and spreads through Natasha. She smiles back.

“How have you been?” she asks. They’ve been keeping in contact every few weeks, but it’s different to be updated in person.

Sam’s head moves in a half-nod, half-shrug motion and his smile twists. “We’re surviving. Steve wants to keep moving, stay under the radar.” He tugs Natasha to a small table nearby and they sit without letting go of each other. “Bucky’s remembering a little, but it’s tough. Most of my usual therapy techniques can’t touch what he’s been through, and what we can do, he’s resisting. Me, he doesn’t trust, but he puts up with me because Steve does. Steve-- I don’t know what the hold-up is there, but it’s like watching a puppy stubbornly run into a brick wall.”

Natasha nearly smiles, feeling another pulse of warmth from Sam, but holds it in. “Seems kinda confidential. Why are you telling me?” She raises an eyebrow.

Sam raises one back. “Why am I asking the Black Widow for help getting someone to spill their secrets?”

“You want me to run a game on your client?” Natasha paraphrases incredulously.

“I want you to get through to him,” says Sam, leaning in closer to her. He looks across the gym at the super soldiers facing off. “Steve’s tried being his friend. I’ve tried being a friend and a counselor and a fellow veteran. Seems we need a new approach.” He turns back to Natasha appraisingly. “And I doubt you tracked us here to see our pretty faces.”

“I don’t know, there’s a lot to look at.” Natasha grins, using her grip on his hand to move around Sam’s exposed arm, where popping veins evidence his recent exertion.

Sam dips his head modestly. “Well thanks. I’m glad somebody noticed. Around these two I feel a bit like the dorky little guy who tags along with the big kids.”

“I definitely noticed.” Natasha winks. “But… I don’t see a mark from Bucky yet. Unless it’s somewhere more interesting?”

“No,” Sam says, abruptly looking back at the ring. “Why would there be?”

Natasha looks closely and spies a blush on his cheeks. “You really did fall quick, huh?”

Sam’s lips twist. “It’s kinda my thing,” he admits, giving her hand a squeeze.

“Then…”

“Like I said. Bucky’s resisting.”

Sam is noticeably more succinct talking about their relationship dynamics than about Bucky’s state of mind. Looks like Natasha’s found at least part of the holdup.

“So. You catch up to us to flirt, or…?” Sam’s renewed smile, and the pulse of interest he can feel down her arm, say that he could stand taking their minds off the issues at hand for a few more minutes. But with the new intel Sam’s given her, Natasha decides to save the option for later.

“Business first,” she demures, taking back her hand.

Sam pouts cutely for an instant, summoning back Natasha’s smile, but he stands up and calls for the sparring pair to wrap it up. “We’ve got a guest!”

The former Howling Commandos immediately break apart, both breathing heavily and, Natasha notes, sweating like pigs. She surmises that gaining back his memories hasn’t affected the Winter Soldier’s fighting skills. That’s good. They’re going to need every drop of talent they can get, no matter how ill-conceived.

Steve nods to her and ducks out of the ring. Bucky follows his lead, though he fetches towels hanging off a cornerpost and tosses one to Steve as they approach. When they’re a few feet away, they still glisten, but no longer drip. Natasha resists the urge to look; Steve and Bucky aren’t Sam.

“Natasha,” Steve greets her with a private smile. He steps close and gives her a kiss on the cheek as an excuse to clasp their arms together. His big hand encircles the thick blue ring high on her left forearm, and her palm presses over the discreet red circle on his inner wrist. A wash of relief, welcome, and friendship flows through Natasha like fresh air, and it’s somehow the same blue as his mark on her.

Whatever Steve feels, he’s smiling wider when he steps back. “Bucky, this is Natasha.” He steps back to introduce them, and Natasha tenses when she sees that Bucky has gone bone white.

“ _Natalia Alianovna,_ ” he says, barely loud enough to be heard. Even then, Natasha can hear the Russian accent, and from the surprise on Steve and Sam’s faces, they haven’t heard it before.

“ _Natasha,_ ” he whispers, and it doesn’t mean the same thing it does when anyone else says it.

“ _Vanya,_ ” she replies evenly. “It’s been a long time.”

Bucky is blinking rapidly. Steve steps toward him and Bucky stumbles back. Natasha waves Steve off and earns a warning look.

“I know you,” Bucky blurted, shakily.

“She was there on the bridge, Buck,” Steve tells him in a soothing voice, but Bucky shakes his head.

“No, before that. I _know_ you. How do I know you?”

Natasha sets her jaw and pulls up the hem of her shirt, exposing the bullet wound and the imprint mark the Winter Soldier had left on her.

“That’s not--” Bucky shakes his head and steps back.

The bitter rage of abandonment, left churning for the long years before she learned about the Soldier’s mind-wipes, spills forth. “ _You scarred me. You are not allowed to deny me!_ ” she shouts in Russian, stalking toward him until she backs him into a weights machine.

His eyes are wide with shock, denial, and fear. It’s the last that stops Natasha. The Soldier did not know fear. Vanya was afraid, but not of her. Bucky has a long list of things to be afraid of, longer than his other two selves combined.

“You’re afraid,” she says in English, aware of Steve and Sam’s nervous presence behind her. “That’s not gonna go away. But being afraid of this,” Natasha touches her shirt over his mark, “is counter-productive. Be afraid of Hydra. Be afraid of the pain that will come when you finally see all the red in your ledger. But don’t be afraid of the people who will always be on your side. They are not a weakness, they are your strength.”

Bucky watches Natasha as she speaks, and then looks at her hand against her side. And then he looks over her shoulder.

“ _They took you away for loving me,_ ” she says shakily in Russian, apologizing to the remnants of heartbroken Natalia inside of her as much as the shadow of the Soldier. “ _I don’t know how you were punished for that._ ”

“I’ll remember,” Bucky tells her. His lips tremble. “I’ll break.”

“Then they’ll put you back together.” She reaches out, slowly, and takes his hand. He lets her, and she slides it under the hem of her shirt to the bullet wound. “We all will.”

As soon as he touches it, Bucky stiffens. His pupils blow wide and he doesn’t move. For long seconds, he doesn’t even breathe, and all Natasha can hear is Steve’s terror and Sam’s dread.

Bucky relaxes so suddenly he nearly sinks to the floor. His metal arm grips the weights machine with a clang, locking him upright. The flesh hand scrabbles at the neck of his t-shirt, tearing it without thought. Bucky paws at his own skin, eyes wide with disbelief.

Etched in jet black from the edge of the metal arm to the center of his chest is a jagged bolt of an imprint.

Bucky looks at Natasha in complete shock, and then he faints.

Steve rushes forward to catch him. He hefts Bucky into his arms, turns, and hightails it out of the gym with a glare for Natasha and a clipped order to Sam to clean up and follow.

Sam shrugs at her. “Could’ve gone worse.”

They gather the group’s gear, clean up and lock the gym, and leave in Natasha’s car. Sam directs Natasha to a local pizza place, where they order enough for two super soldiers and two regular folk and link hands under the table while the food is being made. Under the guise of watching the news, Natasha informs Sam of relevant developments from the rest of the world.

“...working with the President, most of his Cabinet’s been cleared, to vet everyone we have in the UN, the Foreign Service. We’ve spread out agents to the CIA, FBI, NSA, with orders to scope out Hydra cells there as much as they can. For that, at least, the diaspora of SHIELD has actually been useful.” Natasha frowns. “Of course, for every other directive under our aegis, it’s been a nightmare.”

“Not that this isn’t interesting, but why are you telling me all this?” asks Sam. He smirks as he echoes her. “It seems kinda confidential.”

Natasha looks at him seriously. “I can see the writing on the wall, Sam. The Avengers Initiative was planned years in advance. There were almost two dozen potential candidates. The roster we ended up with was a combination of luck and circumstance. We defeated Loki. For this battle, we’re going to need to source a few different skillsets.”

“What are you saying?” Sam leans in closer, glancing around at the locals nearby.

“I’m saying…” Natasha sighs. “You said you were okay with coming back in.”

“I am,” he tells her firmly.

“Good. Because we’re looking for a new Avenger, and Steve and I think you’re it.”

Sam grins with disbelief, sitting back in his chair. After a moment, he laughs out loud. “Me?” Natasha holds his gaze. He leans back forward, eyebrows furrowed. “You’ve talked to Steve about this?”

“I don’t have to.” She pats Sam’s shoulder, an inch or two above the blue circle she’d glimpsed on his chest more than once during the search for Bucky. “Steve trusts you at his back. I think you’ve got the background and, maybe even more important, the temperament we’re going to need in the next few years.”

“Pretty romantic.” There’s a dissatisfaction in his eyes that hasn’t been present before.

“It’s not about romantic. You have the tools we need to get the job done. Do you think I’m sleeping with Tony Stark?”

Sam laughs again. “Okay, okay, I get it. Thanks,” he says sincerely.

“Thank you,” Natasha replies in kind. “It’s not going to all be fancy flying and five-star restaurants.”

They glance around at the grungy pizza place and don’t stop smiling until their order is called.

When they make it back to the quiet bungalow by the river where the roving trio have been staying (“Airbnb,” Sam explained), they approach the door quietly on instinct. Sam even makes a hand-sign at a window with a questioning look, asking if Natasha wants to peek inside, and nearly makes her giggle. After that, they just go inside.

Steve and Bucky are sitting close together on the big sofa in the living room, hands locked together. When Bucky stands up, Natasha takes in his red eyes, relaxed body language and microexpressions, and the blue imprint mark around the ring finger of his remaining hand, matched by the bruise-blue mark in the same place on Steve’s left hand.

Bucky watches her make the connections. When she makes eye contact again, he smiles. “ _Thank you._ ”

“You’re welcome.”

They watch each other for a moment, but Natasha takes a small step to the side, and goes to sit beside Steve while Bucky moves forward to talk quietly with Sam in the kitchen. She and Bucky will have a lot to talk about, but this is not the day for it.

“Have I said thank you yet?” Steve says into her hair, kissing her temple and cheek and curling his arm around her.

“Nope.”

Steve chuckles. “Thank you. For helping Bucky. And for doing my job.”

Natasha turns her head and kisses his neck, avoiding the dusty emerald curl behind his ear. “You can make me second-in-command.”

“You think Stark would give up the honorary position?”

Natasha looks up at him, expressionless. “Tony is a valuable asset. We might need him elsewhere.”

Steve’s smile fades. “You’re that worried?”

“Depends. You still want to bring Bucky in from the cold, squash out the remnants of Hydra, _and_ keep an eye on the anti-superhero sentiment stirring up Congress since London and D.C.? We’re gonna need a lot of political capital.”

Natasha looks back at Sam and Bucky, who are standing very close and talking quietly. Sam has a happy light in his eyes, though, so she continues.

“You and Tony are our biggest earners in that regard. The difference between the two of you is that he can accept doing things that his morals oppose if the ends are worth it. So yeah. Strategically, Tony might need to leave the team at some point.”

Steve’s pale blue eyes are cold and his jaw clenches. “That won’t be necessary.”

Natasha suppresses a shiver. “It might not be your decision. All I’m saying is, make contingency plans.”

A quiet moan from the kitchen catches their attention. Bucky and Sam are kissing gently. As they watch, Sam’s hand comes up to card through Bucky’s hair, and Bucky’s rests on Sam’s hip. After a few moments, a red line, about an inch long, fades in on the back of Bucky’s wrist.

Steve practically melts. Natasha smiles, despite the seriousness of the conversation, and sinks into him.

“It’s been a long day,” Steve murmurs. “Politics can wait. How long are you here for?”

“I told Tony and Maria I’d need a few days to find you. So… we have a few days.”

Steve tries to kiss her, but his grin gets in the way. Natasha touches her mark on his wrist and the muscles in his arm tense in response. Suddenly, kissing is a lot easier.

In the kitchen, Bucky and Sam break apart and head for the bedroom.

“Should we give them a head start?” Natasha breaths into Steve’s mouth.

In answer, he leans back and pulls his shirt over his head. Natasha sees the dark red line-- nearly a triangle-- of Tony’s mark on Steve’s oblique, the clear imprint of Bruce’s tucked into a divot of Steve’s six-pack. Natasha knows that when she gets the rest of his clothes off, nearly everyone she cares about in the world can be found on his skin. That’s comforting.

“I chose this place because it has a king-size bed,” Steve says. He smiles, devilishly enough that his adoring public would never believe it. “I was optimistic.”

“We’d better put it to good use, huh?”

Natasha yelps playfully when Steve throws her over his shoulder and follows Bucky and Sam’s path to the back of the house.


End file.
